Powerless: A Small Town Friends to Lovers Romance

Sloane exchanges texts with Summer and Willa, who are concerned about Jasper. Willa even suggests that Sloane sleep with Jasper in order to make him feel better. With the truck hitched to the trailer full of hay, Jasper and Sloane set out from the ranch. Sloane cannot read Jasper’s emotions or intuit his feelings about the road trip, but she can sense that something has shifted between them. She asks if he ever thinks about her during the times when they lose contact, and Jasper says, “Every fucking day, Sunny” (135).

They play “I Spy” to pass the time, and Jasper chooses her blue eyes, which he says are the same color as a robin’s egg: something he noticed when they were younger. Sloane recalls seeing Jasper after he returned from hockey camp at the age of 19. Now, she looks in the mirror and scrutinizes her own eyes, noticing the stress-related dark circles under them.

Sloane ignores Sterling’s phone call, as well as her father’s surly message that it is her “wifely duty” to return home immediately. Sloane tells them both that she is in control of her own life and will not comply with their demands. By this point, Jasper is exhausted, so they stop in Rose Hill for the night.